The present invention relates to methods for distributing various services and/or programs in a network environment to one or several of the users ie. clients thereof. The invention relates further to arrangements for performing the distribution operations.
In the present arrangements user terminals are connected to a public communications network, which at the present is in most cases the Internet, through an Internet operator (Access Provider). The operator allows the user to enter the Internet and to establish further connections and access various services that are provided by various service providers. The skilled person is familiar with the Internet and the communications networks in general, and thus they are not explained in more detail herein than by mentioning that the Internet is a global open communications network connecting a great number of local area networks, such as networks of various companies, universities and other organizations. These networks may be used by great number of independent work-stations and computer devices. An individual user may have a direct connection to these local area networks or they may be connected to them through a PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) or an ISDN (Integrated Digital Services network) using modems or similar devices. The two most often used communication protocols for the Internet are TCP and IP protocols (Transport Control Protocol and Internet Protocol, respectively). In most cases the service provider provides the various services by utilizing so called WWW (World Wide Web) and HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) protocol to provide a graphical Internet interface for the user terminal which in this case is a data processing device, such as a microcomputer. The WWW contains eg. HTML documents (HyperText Markup Language) ie. xe2x80x9chyperdocumentsxe2x80x9d, one such document forming one entity which can contain text, pictures, even moving pictures, sound, links to the other documents and even links to other services. The skilled person is aware that xe2x80x98servicesxe2x80x99 refers in this connection to various kinds of features, products, services such as electronic mail, electronic phone book, entertainment, assistance and advisory services etc., advertisement, games, videos and similar which are accessible through various communications networks.
The services may be free of charge or then there may be some Service or Access Provider dependent means and arrangements for the payment transactions.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,421,009 and 5,005,122 disclose prior art arrangements in which the management of and control of delivery of programs to client terminals is arranged to occur on basis of a databse containing all required information concerning the particular terminals to which the programs are to be delivered. The delivery of programs is initiated by a centralized server in the system. The prior art arrangements require a massive database and control program which are used in managing the delivery, this delivery occurring only in cases where the instructions to do so are coming from the system itself. This kind of management arrangement is often called to in the art as inventory driven delivery, as there has to be an existing inventory of the client terminals. The individual client terminals connected to the system have to be well known and carefully specified to a centralized server node managing the system. It is not possible for a such new terminal, which is not prior known to the centralized server, to receive any programs from the server.
The present arrangement has disadvantages eg. in that the operator does not usually provide anything else than the connection to the network, such as to the Internet. Therefore the user terminals have to be at least to some extend compatible with the operators hardware and software and especially with the hardware and software of the service providers. In most cases this is arranged such that each of the service providers has various versions of the same service such as to be compatible with various operators and also with various types of user terminals. This has lead into a situation in which the service providers are forced to implement several different version of their service programs etc. to be able to serve a wide variety of user which have accessed the service through various communications protocols, hardware etc., which in turn leads to problems in version management, updating and control and to an increase in the overall costs. In addition, the security and reliability, for instance for money transactions etc., has not been in a satisfying level. In the current situation the user must also have several different softwares or versions of the used software to be able to use the wide variety of the offered services. Usually every single service demands its own kind of program which has to be used in when accessing it. These various programs have to be separately provided and installed into the used data processing device prior to using the service.
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art solutions and to provide a new type of solution for accessing various services provided by means of communications networks.
An object of the present invention is also to provide a method and an arrangement by means of which the accessibility of services in public communications networks is improved.
An object of the present invention is also to provide a method and arrangement which enable the provision of tailored user interfaces from a common source of services.
An object of the present invention is also to provide a method and arrangement which enable an improved security and reliability of the connections between the user and the services.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method and an arrangement by means of which a centralized management of various services provided by various service providers is enabled.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method and an arrangement by means of which the amount of different types of software and hardware needed by the user to be able to use the various services is reduced.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method and an arrangement, by means of which the amount of different software and hardware versions of the service providers is reduced, and in addition, by means of which the user is always provided with the latest possible updated versions of the software.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be brought out in the following part of the specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
According one aspect of the invention, the objects are obtained by an method for distributing an user interface for communications and/or service or services available in a communications network, wherein said user interface is independent from used terminal means and/or used application or applications. The method comprises the following steps: requesting an access to at least one desired service by said terminal means, identifying the type of said terminal means requesting said service(s), by means of the access request and the connection used by the terminal means for requesting the access identifying and selecting the desired service(s), establishing a customized connection between the requested service(s) and said terminal means on basis of said identifying, of the type of the terminal and the desired service(s) delivering at least one service program dependent from the type of the terminal means and the requested service to said terminal means from a Connection Manager or by means of a Connection Manager for the duration of the established customized connection, whereafter the service program is used in the client terminal means for implementing the desired service during the established connection, and closing the connection between the connection manager and the client terminal means, whereby the connection instance becomes invalidated.
According to an alternative aspect, the objects are also obtained by a method for distributing services to client terminal means, which is comprising the following steps: requesting a certain service by the client terminal means, identifying the client terminal means and the type of the connection established between the client terminal means and a Connection Manager by means of the request and the connection used by the client terminal means for requesting the service generating in said Connection manager a terminal means profile on the basis of the identification, selecting a service program among a plurality of possibilities for a service program capable of executing said requested service on the basis of said terminal means profile, and delivering said customized service program to said terminal means from the Connection manager or by means of the Connection managers whereafter the service program is used in the client terminal means for implementing the desired service during the established connection, and closing the connection between the connection manager and the client terminal means whereby the connection instance becomes invalidated.
According to a preferred embodiment the inventive arrangement for distributing a user interface for communications and/or service or services of a communications network, wherein said user interface is independent from used terminal means and/or used application or applications, comprises terminal means for requesting an access to at least one desired service and for executing said service, and a Connection Manager arranged to identify the type of the terminal means requesting said service(s), based upon the access request and the connection established between the terminal means and the connection manager to identify and select the desired service(s), to establish a customized connection between the requested service(s) and the terminal means, on the basis of the identification and to deliver at least one service program dependent from the type of the terminal means, used connections and the requested service to said terminal means at least for the duration of the established customized connections, wherein the arrangement is such that the service program is used in the client terminal means for implementing the service during the established connection and closing the connection between the connection manager and the client terminal means invalidates the connection instance.
An alternative arrangement for distributing services to clients in a communications network comprises client terminal means for requesting and using a certain service and a Connection Manager for identifying the client terminal means and the type of the connection to it such that a terminal means profile becomes generated, for selecting a service program among a plurality of possibilities for a service program capable of executing said requested service on the basis of said terminal means profile, and for delivering said customized service program to said terminal means, wherein the arrangement is such that the service program is used in the client terminal means for implementing the service during the established connection and closing the connection between the connection manager and the client terminal means invalidates the connection instance.
Several advantages are obtained by means of the present invention, since the solution provides a simple, reliable and controllable manner for the service distribution. The inventive solution provides an overall control and management of the connections such that eg. a secure user identification and a better security is obtained while the accessibility of various services is improved and eased for the user. The solution provides means for customizing the connections between the service providers and the users such that neither the service providers or the users will necessarily have to have compatible hardware and/or software. Each user is provided with a personal service according to the facilities he/she may have and/or preferences he/she may have defined. The service providers receive savings in version control and support as they do no longer need to have a number of different kinds of software and hardware compatible with various kinds of protocols and user hardware and software. The solution will allow the service providers to easily create new services without a need to concentrate on any specific technical questions concerning the framework. The communications becomes dynamically routed through the network or even through various networks. In addition, the user can access several services using the same software he/she is familiar with, and the user is not forced to install and learn to use separate programs for every single service. The invention enables also a centralized registration and/or billing proceedings for multiple services.
In the following the present invention and the other objects and advantages thereof will be described by way of an example with reference to the annexed drawings, in which similar reference characters throughout the various figures refer to similar features. It should be understood that the following description of an example of the invention is not meant to restrict the invention to the specific forms presented in this connection but rather the present invention is meant to cover all modifications, similarities and alternatives which are included in the spirit and scope of the present invention, as defined by the appended claims.